Singer-songwriter Ben Taylor made for music range

Ben Taylor’s new album "Listening" is all over the place, flowing smoothly from the beautiful and haunting "Not Alone" to the poppy, percussive, reggae-flavored "You Could Be Mine." And the Martha’s Vineyard resident is very pleased with the range in styles he’s achieved.

Ben Taylor’s new album "Listening" is all over the place, flowing smoothly from the beautiful and haunting "Not Alone" to the poppy, percussive, reggae-flavored "You Could Be Mine."

And the Martha’s Vineyard resident is very pleased with the range in styles he’s achieved.

"I’m proving myself to be the mutt I’ve always planned to be," he said by phone during a visit to New York.

But this mutt comes from quite the musical lineage. His dad is James Taylor, and his mom is Carly Simon. And though he’s been performing his own music on his own terms for the past decade, Taylor, 35, admits there was definitely some parental input.

"My mom always wanted to turn me and my sister onto to something new or remember to tell us to check out some Rolling Stones track," he recalled. "She was also very forthcoming with her whole songwriting process, and very eager to involve us in it. She used to wake us up on school nights because she’d be proud of a chorus she’d just written.

"My dad’s never been a music listener. He makes music, and he doesn’t much appreciate other people doing it," he added, laughing. "But he did get me started on guitar. He taught me to play ‘Where Do the Children Play?’ by Cat Stevens. That was my first song. I learned that one and kept playing and I developed some muscles in my hands, and I was off and running."

Well, off and running as far as playing the guitar. It took the singer-songwriter quite a while to get around to those songs.

"Writing songs was something that I was always petrified to do," he said, "until I decided that the reason it was frightening is because it’s important. I wrote my first song when I was around 22."

It was a couple of years later till he built up the nerve to do his first full-fledged concert, a 2001 benefit for the U.S. Olympic Ski Team.

"I still have some stage fright, but I’m working through it," he said. "I’ve got a sensitive system, like my mom’s, but thankfully I’ve got my father’s blood in me, too, and he’s such an immaculate road dog sort of professional."

Thinking of that first concert led Taylor to a moment of soul baring.

"It was one of those unfortunate situations because of who your folks are, and the unbelievable example of success that they’ve set out," he said. "There were doors open for me onto opportunities that I hadn’t earned and wasn’t ready to try. I had no experience at all, and I had to learn how to be onstage in front of way too many people."

Page 2 of 3 -
Look at him onstage today, though, and you’ll see and hear what appears to be a very relaxed person, often barefoot, usually wrapped around his guitar.

"It’s a day by day thing," he said. "Sometimes you’re on top of the world, and sometimes every song seems like it takes 20 minutes. It’s a crazy business. But it’s definitely the most fulfilling thing I can do, and the most gratifying. I definitely feel as though it’s worth my while to spend my life on music."

When he brings his four-piece group to TCAN to play songs that he refers to as "living arrangements," the show will be a combination of planned and unplanned programming.

"Every time we go out we work up new things," he said. "There are some new tunes, and we try to rearrange some old ones. So usually for the first 10 shows or so, you try different sequences of songs, then talk about them after the gig. Talk about what works and what doesn’t work. And you sort of refine it, so by the third week of the tour you’ve got a set list you’re happy to go with. From there, I always pull random stuff out."

Fans who enjoy Taylor’s less-serious side will be happy to know that he always plays the happy-goofy "Wicked Way."

"Anything that I have in my arsenal of music that lightens things is a real blessing," he said. "The reason you need something like ‘Wicked Way’ is you get to be one of these sensitive singer-songwriters up onstage, and you can run the risk of taking yourself much too seriously. So to have a little bit of comedy is a godsend, an icebreaker."

When Taylor isn’t out on the road making music, he’s back on the Vineyard doing a different kind of work. In recent years he’s been involved with Island Grown Initiative, a grassroots agriculture and educational group.

"We raised a bunch of money and worked with people from the state to incorporate some agriculture into the scholastic protocol," he said. "We actually raised enough money to build gardens and greenhouses in all of the elementary schools on the island, so we made agriculture part of the curriculum."

Taylor has always felt a closeness to the land, and has mentioned in the past that if he wasn’t a musician he might have been a farmer.

"When I was 16, I was working on a beautiful organic farm in New Mexico," he said. "And I do grow things on the Vineyard. I grow anything that will let me get away with being a nomadic musician. Which, unfortunately, is not a lot of things. That’s why I say if I wasn’t doing this, I might like to be doing that."